Drug resistance in microorganisms can occur when an organism acquires a mutation upon exposure to a selective pressure causing the cells to grow out of an arrested state, a process called adaptive mutagenesis. Using the yeast <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </i>as a model organism, we investigated the replicational mutation rates and adaptive mutation frequencies of wild type and 8-oxoguanine glycosylase-deficient (ogg1Δ) cell lines upon exposure to canavanine. The results show that both the replicational mutation rate and adaptive mutation frequency of ogg1Δ are higher (1.49E-06; 5.43E-07) compared to wild type (4.18E-07; 1.53E-07), due to an inability to repair oxidative damage. Additionally, we assessed survival of cells in the presence of canavanine and are working to identify the optimal conditions for selective pressure that will yield the highest percent survival while the cells are under growth arrest, anticipating that longer survival would allow the cells more opportunity to generate an adaptive mutation.

Yeast cell survival in different concentrations of canavanine

249th National Meeting (2015)

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